After Taboo takes inspiration from the fearless spirit of Leigh Bowery. This event brings together boundary-defying self-taught artists Poulomi Desai and Ron Athey (in collaboration with Hermes Pittakos) for a night of performances in Tate Modern's underground Tank. Celebrate the power of art to challenge and overturn social norms.
Join us for an afterparty in the Corner with DJs drawn from London’s queer club cultures.
Willendorf by Ron Athey with Hermes Pittakos
For the creation of Willendorf, Athey invited longtime collaborator, friend, and sculptor, Hermes Pittakos to revisit and re-contextualise The Trojan Whore, a performance Athey staged in 1996 in memoriam of the late artist Leigh Bowery.
Willendorf follows a two-act structure. Symbols of fertility and martydom from ancient times meet Athey's signature endurance aesthetics as the artist becomes a totem of non-reproductive futurity, resistance, power, and revitalisation.
Storms of the Heart: Queering the Cosmos of Memory by Poulomi Desai
Storms of the Heart: Queering the Cosmos of Memory is a new series of performance evocations created by Poulomi Desai. Poulomi has Invited artists Andy Kumar, Jaivant Patel, Ms. Mohammed, Osman Yosefzada and Raisa Kabir to join her in the collective experience. This work imagines queer South Asian futures through the lens of a turbulent, powerless, and often forgotten past that includes UK South Asian outsider, queer clubs and alternative cultures since the 1980’s. The piece explores themes of power and powerlessness through vignettes that address the tensions between self-affirmation and societal rejection, liberation, love, and loss. Drawing from South Asian Diaspora histories of resilience, mythology, queer theory, and postcolonial thought, it navigates a world where we are revered and reviled, powerful and powerless.
Blending South Asian rituals and noise art with live multimedia elements and movement-based choreography, Storms of the Heart creates an immersive, visceral experience of what it means to exist and love across time, space and AI, despite the fears and conflicts of the present. In this world, community memory, identity, and queer liberation exist in fluid, dynamic states. Tate's South Tank serves as both a repository and a membrane—a space to reflect on what we leave behind, preserve, and dream for the future.
